A Border Patrol agent who was hung out to dry by the Biden administration for months on false charges of whipping illegal immigrants at the southern border has now received a Border Patrol achievement award.
In September 2021, images circulated of Border Patrol agents on horseback trying to round up illegal immigrants from Haiti. The images were initially interpreted by some as showing an agent whipping the illegal immigrants.
The incident was denounced by President Joe Biden, who promised to punish the agents responsible.
However, a subsequent investigation revealed that the horses’ reins were the objects that, at the angle some images were taken, appeared to be whips. Despite that, the agents under investigation were found to have used “unnecessary” force, with one agent found to have maneuvered his horse “unsafely” and used “denigrating and inappropriate language,” according to the New York Post. Biden has never apologized to the agents.
The agent was among the many members of Customs and Border Patrol to receive an award, according to the Post.
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The agent’s name has never been released, but the Post said a source it did not name at the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that the agent was among those awarded.
“I find it hilarious and ridiculous that almost three years later, a Border Patrol agent who was accused of being racist and so vilified by this Biden administration now wins an achievement award for his efforts in preventing smuggling, before he gets a public apology,” the Post quoted its DHS source it did not name as saying.
The agent was initially taken off the border and banned from working with illegal immigrants.
Instead, he was assigned to intelligence work to combat human smuggling. His work in that area led to his award, the DHS source said.
Should Biden publicly apologize to this agent?
He eventually was permitted to return to working along the border and allowed to interact with illegal immigrants, according to the DHS source.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas was among those vilifying the agents.
However, in a 2022 report, the Heritage Foundation noted that even as agents were being condemned for what they did not do, evidence had emerged that the outcry against them was wrong.
“We got some communications that were sent to Mayorkas right before he went up and gave that really heated speech at the White House,” said Mike Howell, Director of Heritage’s Oversight Project.
Howell said the Heritage Foundation sued to get the documents that told what went on behind the scenes.
“One such communication that we found was an email from his top press staffer, a woman by the name of Marsha Espinosa. She had forwarded to Mayorkas an article. In this article was a comment from the photographer that was there, the one source that was neither border patrol or a Haitian, illegal alien. The photographer said there was no whipping, ‘I saw no whipping,’” Howell said.
“Marsha Espinosa highlighted this part for Secretary Mayorkas, and Mayorkas went up and gave his press conference and did not make use of this information that would’ve cleared the border patrol agents in light of this public outcry and these false accusations being levied at them from media, Democrat congressmen, and even the president of the United States,” he said.
